Last year lawyers and environmentalists of EPL conducted a study of environmental consequences of military actions in Donbas. Representatives of the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation presented these studies as their own achievements.
In February 2016, in the territory of so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic” there was held a constituent conference devoted to environmental issues in the region. Majority of the participants of the conference were little-known Russian scientists, largely not environmentalists. But the seriousness of the event was ‘consecrated’ with presence at the conference of the expert for environmental rights of the Russian Federation Presidential Council of Civil Society and Human Rights Elena Esina. In her presentation she used the results of the studies published a year ago by EPL in the “Ukrainian Truth» http://life.pravda.com.ua/society/2015/03/23/191385/.
These are result of counting craters from explosions in the vicinity of Savur-Mohyla and analysis of soil contamination caused by such explosions. In fact, in the presentation she used the only research results that have been publicly released.
Analyzing the so-called configuration of ellipses of dispersion shells, it is clear that the areas we studied is the place of mass shelling of Ukrainian Armed Forces performed by the Russian Federation, because at that time Ukrainian troops were defending the military point at Savur-Mohyla. But obviously agents of the Kremlin presented results of studies of Ukrainian environmentalists not only as their own achievements but also as the argument against Ukraine.
